Kaytranada's First Concert In Mumbai Was A Party
It was a stadium-sized party with full basement energy
On a cool December Mumbai night, Kaytranada walks onstage like he’s heading to a house party later. White vest. Blue shorts. Blue Adidas Sambas that look lived-in. He steps behind the decks at the Dome, SVP Stadium, bounces once on his heels, and before the crowd can finish cheering their asses off, he’s already locked into a groove.
And well, that’s how the night moved.
Organized by District by Zomato, this was Kaytranada’s first-ever show in Mumbai. You could feel the significance without anyone spelling it out. The shoulders loosened, hips followed, and an entire arena fell into sync. The dome was full, restless, primed. When “What You Need” slid in, followed quickly by “Intimidated” and “You’re the One,” the arena basically erupted.
“Groove is everything,” he tells me backstage earlier that evening, a few minutes before the show. “A drop could last ten seconds of enjoyment, and then you’re waiting for the next one. Instead we could just keep on the groove going and enjoy the music?” It’s a line that could double as his mission statement. Kaytranada isn’t interested in spectacle for its own sake. He’s interested in movement—continuous, communal, unbroken.
That sensibility traces back to Montreal, where he grew up after moving from Haiti as an infant. The city’s influence on his sound is subtle but foundational: a place where hip-hop, house, funk, and global club music bleed into one another without hierarchy. As a teenager, he taught himself production on FL Studio, flipping samples obsessively.
“I come from the era of hip-hop,” he says simply. It explains why his tracks feel lived-in rather than engineered for “drop culture”. Even at their most dancefloor-ready, they retain a looseness—drums that shuffle instead of snap, basslines that glide rather than punch. His breakout moment came not through a viral original but via remixes uploaded to SoundCloud, reworks that revealed an intuitive understanding of how to make familiar songs move differently.
That instinct carried him from the underground to his debut album, 99.9%, and later to Bubba, which earned him two Grammys and quietly redefined what electronic music could sound like in the late 2010s. The accolades followed, but the approach never shifted. Kaytranada remained a producer first—someone more interested in feel than form.
Kaytranada also is, at heart, a dancer’s DJ. Ask him the best city in the world to dance in and he doesn’t hesitate: “Paris”. Not because it’s fashionable, but because of its dance culture—battles, competitions, movement as language. “I can catch that energy when I’m doing shows,” he says. In Mumbai, that energy finds him back quickly.
Midway through the set, when “Be Your Girl” lands—the song he admits “never fails” live—the Dome feels less like a stadium and more like a basement party that’s grown out of control. It’s sweaty, loud, joyous, and intimate in that rare way only good dance music can manage. Kaytranada grins, shoulders rolling, letting the track breathe. He knows exactly what it’s doing to the room.
That instinct—the ability to read a space and respond in real time—comes from a career built without shortcuts. Even now, with four albums behind him and another just out, he doesn’t talk about “reinvention” or “eras.” He talks about beats. About movement. About connection.
India, he admits, has long occupied a space in his imagination. “I’ve always appreciated Bollywood music, especially from the ’70s and ’80s,” he says, speaking with genuine warmth about R. D. Burman, Bappi Lahiri, and Asha Bhosle. Performing in India was something he envisioned as a teenager, long before global tours made it inevitable.
That reverence shows up not as imitation but as openness. When asked about dream collaborations, he doesn’t rattle off megastars. “I want to work with new artists,” he says. “Pop or R&B artists who want to reinvent themselves fully. I want to produce everything.” For him, collaboration is about curiosity, about learning the new stuff, about reinventing.
His most recent album, AIN’T NO DAMN WAY!, feels like a reaffirmation of all those things—club-focused, sample-driven, unapologetically rhythmic. The lead single “Space Invader” leans into retro textures without sounding nostalgic, pulling from ’80s drum machines and ’90s rave synths while keeping the mix sharp and modern. It’s music designed for movement, whether that’s a dancefloor, a workout, or a solitary late-night listen.
When the set ends, there’s no dramatic ending. Just a final track, a wave, and a room full of people still moving, reluctant to break the spell. Kaytranada doesn’t need to announce his arrival in India. He’s already done it the only way that matters—by making the city dance, properly.